"No, thank you, I'm not homeless."

March 3, 2018 8:12 AM

There seems to be no simple answer to Nakesha Williams's life of brilliant promise undone by mental illness. "She said she loved novels, and they discussed the authors she was reading, from Jane Austen to Jodi Picoult. She and P.J. chatted as time allowed, or until Nakesha veered into topics that hinted at paranoia: plots and lies against her. "

"... Yet, P.J. realized she knew little about Nakesha, and she wondered about her past.

"Nearly three decades earlier, another woman took notice of Nakesha, then an 18-year-old college freshman, and considered her seemingly boundless future. Sandra Burton, director of the dance program at Williams College in Massachusetts, was struck immediately by Nakesha’s vibrancy and talent as a dancer. She became Nakesha’s teacher and mentor, and she began to closely track her development. Nakesha, she recalled, stood out no matter the setting: the stage, the classroom, even across a kitchen table."

posted by MiraK (23 comments total)

living in Portland, one of the first things that jumped out at me was that NYC has only an estimated 3900 unsheltered.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 8:34 AM on March 3, 2018 [7 favorites]

Portland has less than a tenth the population, and roughly the same population sleeping rough per the last census, 3801

Los Angeles County, with a slightly larger population than NYC, has an estimated 57,000-58,000 homeless (enough that it's throwing off the statistics nationwide)
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 8:42 AM on March 3, 2018 [8 favorites]

I can't help but feel both that I am shifting the focus away from an individual's story, and also that as long as we look at solving individual stories, rather than building and funding infrastructure to solve all the individual stories, that there is an endless series of these stories ahead of us.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 8:44 AM on March 3, 2018 [13 favorites]

According to Coalition for the Homeless, that number of unsheltered people may be grossly underestimated.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 9:06 AM on March 3, 2018 [4 favorites]

For climate reasons, West Coast cities will always have disproportionately high numbers of truly unsheltered. You basically have to be in a mental state where you genuinely don't care if you live or die to spend a NYC or Boston winter fully unsheltered.
posted by praemunire at 9:16 AM on March 3, 2018 [16 favorites]

I'm pretty sure Nakesha had DID associated with trauma from childhood molestation, mentioned at the end of the article. A lot of people mistakenly believe that delusions involving multiple personalities are due to schizophrenia, which was mentioned, but instead it's usually a coping mechanism for severe sexual trauma experienced in childhood. It's probably why she didn't trust shelters at all and considered them unsafe, or most people who tried to help.
posted by krinklyfig at 9:38 AM on March 3, 2018 [6 favorites]

This was a sad read, but I was struck by how many people knew her and tried to help in whatever capacity they could. Years ago, some friends of mine had an adult son who was homeless in Los Angeles. He had schizophrenia and refused treatment, or left treatment. They were generally unable to get information about him; once a year, they could call the police department and find out whether he had been arrested during that year, and then they would know, at least, that on such-and-such a day he was alive, not visibly ill, not injured.

After many years, he accepted treatment and came home to live with them. I don't know the circumstances. I knew, though, that it must have been a tremendous relief after all those years of fear and unknowing. It is comforting to think that perhaps he, also, had people who noticed him, knew him, and helped in small ways, or tried to.
posted by Orlop at 9:48 AM on March 3, 2018 [12 favorites]

rather than building and funding infrastructure to solve all the individual stories, that there is an endless series of these stories ahead of us.

But what do we do when someone refuses help? That's a big theme throughout the article. It's not clear that Nakesha could ever have been considered a danger to herself by our system, but when we deinsitutionalized mental illness, autonomy became a priority except when the danger of harm is imminent.
posted by krinklyfig at 9:50 AM on March 3, 2018 [14 favorites]

But what do we do when someone refuses help?

That may be a genuinely insoluble problem at the very margins. E.g., even with a UBI, a person might refuse to take the money. But a lot of the "help" we have to offer such people right now is pretty unappealing. Much of our emergency housing isn't safe or even modestly comfortable for people who aren't in a state of intense emotional lability or paranoia.
posted by praemunire at 10:25 AM on March 3, 2018 [19 favorites]

For climate reasons, West Coast cities will always have disproportionately high numbers of truly unsheltered.

yup, the warmer the winters -- the more homeless you're likely to have. Witness Vancouver having Canada's highest rates. The fact that the west coast of North America is generally more liberal/social than other areas also likely skews the numberss.

According to Coalition for the Homeless, that number of unsheltered people may be grossly underestimated.

That's long been my read. Again speaking of Vancouver here. If the official numbers are correct, there are clearly far more multimillionaires than homeless individuals.
posted by philip-random at 11:29 AM on March 3, 2018

yup, the warmer the winters -- the more homeless you're likely to have.

That's one of the reasons I've been so worried this winter. We had frosts a few nights, and the temp is regularly around 51f/11c during the day and much colder at night. Yeah it's finally raining, but I expect if you're homeless in an area with a Mediterranean climate you know what to do in rain- it's the cold that will kill you. I just hope the shelters in the city are running ok.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 12:09 PM on March 3, 2018

Metafilter had a thoughtful and articulate woman, homeless at the time, who used to contribute a lot. I hope she is ok, and I wish we had her perspective here.
posted by Baeria at 12:41 PM on March 3, 2018 [21 favorites]

“The freedom to be insane is a cruel hoax perpetrated on those who cannot think clearly by those who will not think clearly.”
posted by meehawl at 12:43 PM on March 3, 2018 [7 favorites]

How policymakers could read a story like this and not think, "There but for the grace of God/luck of the draw go I" is beyond me. I mean, I know it's the case, but I don't understand it.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:34 PM on March 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

“The freedom to be insane is a cruel hoax perpetrated on those who cannot think clearly by those who will not think clearly.”

It's easy for people who have never undergone involuntary treatment to say pithy little things like this.

Don't want to be on medication that causes diabetes, obesity, potentially permanent tardive dyskinesia, seizures, etc. etc.? Too bad. You want to use the bathroom or shower without some pasty mental health worker leering at you over a clipboard? Too bad. You want to get through a hospital intake without being cavity searched while two other people hold you down? Too bad. You want to go for a walk in the sunshine on your own schedule without getting tackled and held down by four guys and then shot up with a sedative and tossed in isolation for 5 days? Too bad. Cuz, apparently, that's the treatment you deserve because someone who can think clearly has decided that you can't think clearly enough to turn down opportunities to be cavity searched, medicated, or locked in a padded room.

So, yeah. All that happened to me and it wasn't even an involuntary hold. I was under the age of 18, admitted by my parents, and was in an "unlocked" unit that they nevertheless dragged you back to if you exited without permission. I could put in a "notice" to sign out but it took 72 hours to get a hearing with a judge. And this was a $1200/day private hospital, not one of the state funded hellholes. I'd had no contact with police.

I know people will make the argument that if you're crazy enough to go to one of these places you need to get "straightened out" so you can make different choices. To them I say, "good luck with that." I can't say that the trauma of the psych hospital made things any better, and my experience was super tame compared to the experiences of those who end up in prison or real locked wards.

I'd change my mind if I had any evidence that the theory or practice of mental health treatment had changed for the better, but I haven't heard of anyone who has figured out a way to treat unwilling patients with respect for our humanity.
posted by xyzzy at 3:08 PM on March 3, 2018 [25 favorites]

It's easy for people who have never undergone involuntary treatment to say pithy little things like this.

Yeah, I'm somewhat ambivalent about many of the specific issues involved but I don't think it would be fair to suggest that the anti-psychiatry movement is driven solely by people who don't have personal experience with mental illness and the treatment thereof.
posted by atoxyl at 4:40 PM on March 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

Baeria, are you thinking of Michele in California?
posted by fizzix at 5:42 PM on March 3, 2018 [2 favorites]

Don't want to be on medication that causes diabetes, obesity, potentially permanent tardive dyskinesia, seizures, etc. etc.?

I’ve been off atypicals for half a decade now and I still sometimes (as in, this morning) get deep muscle twitches. The current drug I’m on is fantastic right up until the point where my body decides to reject my skin, which could be tomorrow or a year from now or never. There are alternatives. They all come with their own side effects.

Pretending that madness is preferable to side effects is a luxury, and it’s one the healthy are fond of indulging in. It’s the social disability model. It’s almost unimaginable now among liberals that people might be born with conditions they’d rather destroy their health to treat than be stuck living with. That might involve believing that nature isn’t fair, that there’s shit in this world that the right attitude and the destruction of Capitalism! can’t cure. It’s easier to vilify Big Pharma than to believe that some of us fucking well would go through hell to get our hands on those things with horrific side effects.

Yes, I would love to be on those drugs. Because I know the alternative.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 7:38 PM on March 3, 2018 [10 favorites]

Great read. Thanks for posting.
posted by k8t at 8:09 PM on March 3, 2018

the sickening hole in this story is the two men who fathered her children deliberately. I should say one of them certainly did it deliberately, the one who was deemed fit to raise a child and to whom custody was awarded. which I think is obscene, but resources for children are limited in this world and you make do with what you have. who is he, why is he so tactfully and completely omitted if they know that much about him?

the other, about whom nothing is said, I suppose could have been as badly off as she was, in his own way, and maybe didn't know what he was doing when he conceived a child and left a woman with it who had no safe place to be, mentally or physically. maybe. didn't think "this brilliant woman sleeps on benches and lives in public libraries and won't go to doctors for reasons unknown to me, getting her pregnant when I have the power not to would be a vile thing to do to her," maybe.

it is a moving and tragic story but dwelling on these men to any degree would upset the frame of "everyone loved and tried to help her, but she couldn't or wouldn't be helped." not everyone.
posted by queenofbithynia at 11:02 PM on March 3, 2018 [8 favorites]

I mean you would think from reading this that pregnancy is just one of those unfortunate things that happens to ill women on the street, like swollen feet and poor circulation and tooth decay and worsening mental troubles. just the human female body hurting itself when cut off from civilized amenities, nobody else involved. it's really shocking.
posted by queenofbithynia at 11:11 PM on March 3, 2018 [6 favorites]

My guess is that they kept discussion of the children and their fathers to a minimum for the sake of the children's privacy.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:01 AM on March 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

I assumed that they said nothing about the first father because (a) they didn't know who he was and (b) they considered it a real possibility from circumstances alone that she was raped, but felt that making that claim without any stronger evidence would have detracted from the story.

The second...you actually don't see a lot of women on the streets who are completely alone. The homeless or unstably-sheltered coupling up is common, whether it's for protection or for economic reasons or for affection/basic need for human companionship or just for sexual desire. She had a particularly intractable reason for being homeless; his problems may have been a bit more manageable long-term. There's no woman who can't be targeted for rape, but it seems a lot more likely that the second child was born of a consensual relationship between two profoundly damaged people than that some more functional man saw a woman like her (seriously overweight, hygiene problems, in her own mental world so not able to focus on his emotional needs) as someone who could be manipulated for easy sex and then...hung around long enough to claim the child.
posted by praemunire at 8:33 AM on March 4, 2018 [3 favorites]